The University of Edinburgh
Postdoctoral Research Associate
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Job Description
Grade UE07: £41,064 to £48,822 per annum
Linguistics and English Language / PPLS / CAHSS
Full time: 35 hours per week
Fixed term: for 3 years
The Opportunity
Unlocking your career. Be part of something bigger.
Here at the University of Edinburgh there’s a career for everyone. We can offer opportunities for you to develop in your career and make a real difference in the communities around us whilst contributing to the world at large. Our people come from a wide range of backgrounds, each bringing their abilities and experiences to our organisation.
The University of Edinburgh is a world-class organisation. We look for the best in the field across all disciplines and provide a working environment where academics can develop their careers and passion for their chosen subject area. We offer the full range of academic roles and have a genuine focus on our student’s performance and wellbeing.
The Role
The successful candidate will work alongside Co-I Dr Lisa Gotthard to contribute to the project ‘INTSAYT: Investigating and Treebanking Scots and Yiddish Together’ funded by the ESRC. The researcher will conduct research within morpho-syntactic variation and change in the history of Scots, and the methodology of annotating parsed corpora (treebanks), contributing to the development of new ideas, approaches, concepts and techniques.
This post is a full-time (35 hours per week), fixed term post for 36 months available from January 2027.
Informal enquiries may be made to Dr Lisa Gothard (l.gotthard@ed.ac.uk).
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As a valued member of our team, you can expect:
- A competitive salary.
- An exciting, positive, creative, challenging and rewarding place to work.
- To be part of a diverse and vibrant international community.
- Comprehensive Staff Benefits, including generous annual leave entitlement, a defined benefits pension scheme, a wide range of staff discounts, family-friendly initiatives, and flexible work options. Check out the full list on our staff benefits page and use our reward calculator to discover the value of your pay and benefits.
Championing Equality, Diversity, And Inclusion
The University of Edinburgh holds a Silver Athena SWAN award in recognition of our commitment to advance gender equality in higher education. We are members of the Race Equality Charter, and we are also a Stonewall Proud Employer, actively promoting LGBTQ+ equality.
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We particularly welcome applications from eligible candidates from under-represented groups, including racially minoritised individuals and all gender identities.
Prior to any employment commencing with the University, you will be required to evidence your right to work in the UK. Further information is available on our right to work webpages.
The University may be able to sponsor the employment of international workers in this role. This will depend on a number of factors specific to the successful applicant.
Key Dates To Note
The closing date for applications is 5 October 2026.
Unless stated otherwise the closing time for applications is 11:59pm UK time. If you are applying outside the UK the closing time on our adverts automatically adjusts to your browser’s local time zone.
Application Information
We ask you to include a cover letter into the online application portal, along with a CV. These documents must be uploaded in all cases. We invite candidates to use their cover letter to highlight professional and personal experiences that are relevant to role.
Applicants do not need to submit references when applying, however we do ask that the names and contact details of 3 potential referees be included as part of your CV or cover letter. We will seek letters of reference for those shortlisted for interview unless specifically stated otherwise on the application form.
As a School we acknowledge that people’s career paths are rarely linear and welcome applicants to expand on their professional and personal journeys where appropriate.
More information on how to submit your application can be found here.
About Us
As a world-leading research-intensive University, we are here to address tomorrow’s greatest challenges. Between now and 2030 we will do that with a values-led approach to teaching, research and innovation, and through the strength of our relationships, both locally and globally.
About The Team
Edinburgh has a lively department of Linguistics and English Language with world-leading research and an enthusiastic and supportive teaching culture. We house 33 academic staff who cover a wide range of topics from the early history of English to speech synthesis. Linguistics at Edinburgh ranks 5th in the world and 2nd in the UK (QS World University Rankings by Subject 2017).
Our research is placed first for Modern Languages and Linguistics in the Times Higher Education rankings of the Research Excellence Framework 2014.
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We have two research centres: the Angus McIntosh Centre for Historical Linguistics, and the Centre for Language Evolution. We are also the founders of Bilingualism Matters, a centre for public engagement, which has 16 branches across Europe and the US. Along with Informatics, Linguistics and English Language is a founder member of the University’s Centre for Speech Technology Research.
Our research specialisms range from syntax, semantics, pragmatics, morphology, phonetics, and phonology to language and identity, variationist sociolinguistics, the linguistics of English, language evolution, language acquisition and development, and language change. We have a well-established and large PhD programme, with many of our PhD graduates going on to successful academic careers. We also offer eight taught MSc programmes and an MSc by Research. Each year, our graduate students organise the Linguistics and English Language Postgraduate Conference, an international event which has run for over 20 years. The department has access to fully-equipped facilities for EEG/ERP and eye-tracking research, and a state-of-the-art recording studio.
Undergraduate teaching, which draws on our well-established research strengths, ranges from first year classes of around 290 students (including a first year intake onto Linguistics or English Language single and joint honours degree programmes of around 150 students) to some 60 students who choose to write their undergraduate dissertations with us. The Linguistics and English Language student society, LangSoc, runs a lively programme of talks and events and is the host of the 2018 conference for Undergraduate Linguistics Association of Britain (ULAB). As well as our single honours degrees, we offer a wide range of joint honours degrees with subjects including English Literature, Philosophy, Psychology, Social Anthropology and Modern Languages. Our teaching is well-regarded by students and external examiners, and we score highly in the National Student Survey (NSS 2017).
Linguistics and English Language has close ties with Psychology and Philosophy, the other two areas within its home School; beyond the School, the department has links with Edinburgh's renowned Schools of Education and Informatics.
For more information visit https://www.ed.ac.uk/ppls/linguistics-and-english-language
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